Russian hacker stoles email credentials for social media likes

According to latest figures released by Hold Security, more than 272 million unique credentials were hacked so far, as a part of a supposed larger collection of 1.17 billion records.

The hacker bragged about its performance on an on-line forum and initially asked Hold Security for 50 rubles for the 10 GB data stash. At the end of the day, “the Collector” exchanged the credentials for social media likes.

Most of the accounts belong to users of Mail.ru, but accounts of Gmail, Microsoft and Yahoo were also stolen. According to Reuters, 40 million Yahoo Mail, 33 million Microsoft Hotmail, 24 million Gmail and 57 million Mail.ru accounts credentials were exposed. U.S., German and Chinese company emails were also included in the stash.

Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and Mail.ru have declined to comment on the incident so far.